The MEME Coin has been trading at a discount of late. The MEME Tribe offers NFTs; So, I saw this as an opportunity to experiment with the NFT system on HIVE.
Earlier this week I created a meme nft on hiveme.me.
I created the NFT using the DALL-E product on OpenAI. It cost 1 openai credit to produce the image.
I paid 1000 to have my account whitelisted on HiveMe.me. The cost of creating an NFT was 600 MEME for the first edition and 100 MEME for each additional edition.
I created 5 editions for 1000 MEME.
The system created the NFT but failed to issue the tokens to me!
I've been wondering why this happened. I noticed that some other accounts had the same problem.
So, I decided to create another NFT.
I returned to DALL-E and asked for another NFT that explored the relation between man and machine.
DALL-E produced the image at the top of the page. It shows a large robot with a screwdriver attachment on its left arm hovering over a man who is picking things off the ground.
I have no idea how or why this particular image could be considered a meme.
A internet meme is an image that conveys a provocative message. This image simply shows a robot working with a person. I can't imagine anyway that people would see it as provocative.
But memes are largely in the eye of the beholder.
Anyway, I bought another 1000 MEME for about 0.021 HIVE.
I minted the meme with five editions.
After I pressed the button, the systme sent my 1000 MEME to the account meme.nft.
This time meme.nft created my NFT. It then issued five VIRAL tokens to my account. The NFTs were labeled VIRAL 823-827.
I decided that I wanted to keep one edition for my collection and sell the rest at cost. That is I would sell 4.
1000/4 = 250.
I listed the first NFT at 250 MEME.
An account named 
hhhhmmmm, I wonder what
The system takes a 10% cut. So, if I want to sell the images at cost I would need to raise the price to 280.
I then listed the remaining three NFTs at 280 MEME.
MEMEs and AI
My supposition is that AI might be a boon for MEME HIVE.
MEME artists tend to make memes from copyrighted material. This creates problems for HIVE. To avoid legal problems on HIVE, it is necessary for HIVE Watchers to downvote posts with copied images and plagiarized text.
While AI images are simply produced by prompts, they are considered unique.
The copyright office seems to hold that since the images were not created by human effort they are not copyrightable.
Of course the absence of a copyright poses challenges as well. This link will bring you to the IPFS version of the image.
Since all I did was write a prompt into a computer, the image is really just in the public domain.
A person who wanted to reuse or modify this file could do so without remorse. The NFT I created from the file is only backed by the blockchain and is not backed by copyright.
What Are Your Two Cents on This Topic?
I still haven't figured out why the system did not issue the first NFTs to my account. The glitch has affected others.
That said, I am considering playing the game of creating NFTs of any memes that I create in future. If I can sell the NFTs at cost; then I should be able to play this game without losing too much MEME.
Hiveme.me shows shows that the USD value of the editions at 280 MEME is $0.02.
The counter argument is that AI built MEMEs aren't creative enough to serve as the base for an NFT. They don't have a copyright and really aren't worth two cents.
I am inclined to let the market answer questions like this, although I would also appreciate feed back.
Seriously, how could this AI generated image of a man and machine be considered a meme? Personally, I don't get it.
Posted using MemeHive